Angie Craig: “the Senate and the leadership of the Senate and the House, for well over a month and a half, deferred to the President…”

“the Senate and the leadership of the Senate and the House, for well over a month and a half, deferred to the President and the responsibility of the President in submitting a budget to Congress. I sat on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and listened to our President refer to the submitting of a balanced budget; 12 times in the State of the Union address our President spoke of a balanced budget. We received that budget. No one chose, in their own good form, to criticize it. In fact, we sent it off to be analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office. And it came back. I must report to the minority leader that it was not a balanced budget, and we all know that now. It was well out of balance by nearly $100 billion for the 4 years of this President, with the inclusion of a major tax increase and some tax cuts. And then, of course, the year after this President leaves office, the tax cuts go away, the tax increases stay, and a major cut in programs or a major increase in revenue.”